Mousesports rush their way to a silver medal finish at ESL One Belo Horizonte in Brazil, without starplayer Tomáš „oskar“ Šťastný. After an intense best-of-five Grand Final, mousesports finish second and add $40,000 USD to the bankroll, while fielding Jordan „n0thing“ Gilbert.

oskar skips Brazil, n0thing acts as stand-in

Prior to the event in Belo Horizonte, mousesports had to announce the stand-in for Tomáš „oskar“ Šťastný, who had not been able to attend the event due to personal reasons. No other than Jordan „n0thing“ Gilbert was acquired to play instead in Brazil. With very little preparation time, the team faced the Brazilian squad of Não Tem Como as their first opponent in the group stage.

The route to the Grand Finals never looked more convincing from the mousesports perspective, as the squad advanced without giving a single map to their opponents. The team was victorious over Não Tem Como, got their revenge on Team Liquid for the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals loss, and silenced the home crowd with a victory over the Brazilian SK Gaming, to advance to the Grand Final.

mousesports in Belo Horizonte (Photo: ESL)

The battle of the stand-ins

In the Grand Final of ESL One Belo Horizonte, two teams, each with a stand-in met: FaZe Clan didn’t field their starting lineup, with Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer Gustafsson still missing, but with the helping hand of Jørgen "cromen" Robertsen. The first map of the Grand Final, Inferno, went to FaZe 16-6 and it seemed that mouz couldn’t find their way into the game. The second map, Cache, at first didn’t look well for mouz neither: After being down 11-0 on the CT side, the mousesports squad gained back their confidence finishing the map 16-14 with an insane comeback. After a 16-12 on Train, mouz even took the lead in the BO5 series and was only one map win away of taking home the trophy.

Mirage did not seem to be mousesports territory anymore, as the team struggled once more in recent weeks on their once dominant map. Robin „ropz“ Kool and his mates couldn’t get the upper hand on their former signature map, losing it to FaZe 9-16. Now, with both teams having a score of two won matches, it was a truly do-or-die situation for either team. On Dust II it looked like a very balanced back-and-forth game in the first half, but in the second half, FaZe managed to win eight consecutive rounds, putting mousesports under pressure. Chris „chrisJ“ de Jong played his heart out, but in the end FaZe prevailed and took home the trophy.

Key takeaways

ropz to play with childhood hero

on a more serious note, i still find it extremely odd that i was once this 10 year old kid watching fragmovies and EG tutorials from @n0thing and the next thing you know i'm playing in an international tournament alongside with the same dude i wanted to be for a very long time https://t.co/hTZhwLrKBC

Robin „ropz“ Kool was excited to play alongside Jordan „n0thing“ Gilbert, as he used to watch his fragmovies and turorials, when he was only 10 years old. With n0thing as the stand-in, a long awaited dream came true for our young shooting star.

ropz with childhood hero n0thing (Photo: ESL)

„Playing alongside Jordan and getting to know him on a more personal level was the best thing I could ask for, he still has the competitive vibe in him and brings so much positivity.“ - ropz on playing alongside n0thing

Missing the star player: no problem for chrisJ

chrisJ played one of his best events ever with mouz (Photo: HLTV.org)

Playing the ESL One Belo Horizonte event without mouz’ star AWPer Tomáš „oskar“ Šťastný, did not seem to be such a tragedy as it looked like before. Chris „chrisJ“ de Jong went back to his roots, taking up the primary AWP and deciding crucial rounds singlehandedly. It was a performance like no other, indeed it was chrisJ’s second best major LAN event with a 1.29 rating during his career with mousesports. The Dutch player showed his tremendous capability with in-game-leading, AWPing and even leading the scoreboard. A big portion of the success at ESL One Belo Horizonte was due to chrisJ’s magic with the AWP. In the end however, even though chrisJ had played his heart out in the Grand Final, it just was not enough to bring the trophy home this time.